Caste

Nature of Caste

When the Portuguese began to trade extensively with South Asia, they
quickly noticed a fundamental difference between South Asian societies
and those of other world areas. In India and Sri Lanka, societies are
broken up into a large number of groups who do not intermarry, who are
ranked in relation to each other, and whose interactions are governed by
a multitude of ritualized behaviors. The Portuguese called these groups casta,
from which the English term caste is derived. In South Asia,
they are described by the term jati, or birth. According to
traditional culture, every person is born into a particular group that
defines his or her unchangeable position within society.

One of the most basic concepts underlying caste is purity. On one
level this idea translates into a concern for personal hygiene, but the
concept ultimately refers to a psychic or spiritual purity that lies
beyond the physical body. A religious interpretation associated with
Indian thought asserts that personal salvation or enlightenment is the
ultimate goal of life, and that the individual goes through many lives
and experiences before attaining sufficient knowledge to transcend the
material world. Those beings who have gone farther on this road to
enlightenment have purified their consciousness and regulate their lives
in order to prevent more gross experiences from interfering with their
progress toward salvation. Those groups of people whose life-styles are
the purest are farthest along on the spiritual road and are most
deserving of respect. These ideas about purity offer a rationale for
dividing society into a large number of groups, ranked according to the
purity of their lifestyles or occupations. The persons in each group
must be careful to preserve the relative purity of their own group and
to avoid close contact with persons of lower purity; otherwise, they may
sully or "pollute" themselves or the members of purer groups.

The idea of psychic purity blends with a series of traditional
notions about pure or polluting substances and about behaviors and
rituals, resulting in a rich system that explains caste segregation and
modes of caste interaction. It is possible for people to transmit their
qualities to others by touching them or by giving them objects. In
extreme cases, even the shadow of a very low-caste individual can
pollute an individual of the highest, priestly castes. If the physical
contact is intimate or if people have manipulated certain objects for a
long time, the intensity of the transmitted qualities increases. Simple
objects such as tools, for example, may change hands between persons of
different caste without problem. Food, however, which actually enters
and becomes part of a person's body, is a more serious matter. Cooked
food, involving processing and longer periods of contact, is more
problematic than uncooked food. There is thus a series of prohibitions
on the sharing of food between members of different castes. Members of
higher castes may avoid taking food from members of lower castes,
although lower-caste persons may not mind taking food from members of
the higher orders. The most intimate contact is sexual because it
involves the joining of two bodies and the transmission of the very
substances that determine caste for life. Sexual contact between persons
of different castes is discouraged, and intercaste marriage is rare.
When intercaste sexual affairs do occur, they are almost always between
men of higher caste and women of lower caste, for it is less polluting
to send forth substances than to receive them. In the distant past,
women who had sexual contact with men of lower caste were killed, and
they would still be ostracized today in some villages. When polluting
contacts occur between members of different castes, personal purity may
be restored by performing cleansing rituals. In general, these concepts
of purity prevent partaking of meals together and intermarriage between
different castes, regulate intercaste relations through a wide variety
of ritual behaviors, and preserve deep-seated social cleavages
throughout Sri Lanka.

There has been a strong tendency to link the position of different
castes in the social hierarchy to their occupations. Groups who wash
clothes or who process waste, thus coming in contact with undesirable
substances from many persons, are typically given low status. In both
Hindu and Buddhist thought, the destruction of life is very ignoble,
because it extinguishes other beings struggling for consciousness and
salvation. This idea has rationalized views of fishermen or leather
workers, who kill animals, as low and impure groups. In many cases,
however, the labeling of an occupational group as a caste with a
particular status has depended on historical developments rather than
theories of purity. As the village farming economy spread over time,
many tribal societies probably changed from hunters and gatherers to
low-status service castes, ranked below the landowning farmers. Many
poor agricultural laborers in Sri Lanka remain members of low castes as
well. Other immigrant groups came to Sri Lanka, fit into particular
occupational niches, and became known as castes with ranks linked to
their primary occupations. Castes with members who accumulated wealth
and power have tended to rise gradually in their relative positions, and
it is not uncommon for members of rising caste groups to adopt
vegetarianism or patronize religious institutions in an attempt to raise
their public ritual status.

Caste among the Sinhalese

The dominant caste among the Sinhalese population is the Goyigama.
Although the government keeps no official statistics on caste, it
appears that the Goyigama comprise at least half the Sinhalese
population. The traditional occupation of this caste is agriculture, and
most members are still peasant farmers in villages almost everywhere in
Sri Lanka. In traditional Sinhalese society, they monopolized the
highest positions at royal courts and among the landowning elite. In the
democratic society of the twentieth century, their members still
dominate the political scene. In most villages they might be no richer
than their nonGoyigama neighbors, but the richest landlord groups tend
to be Goyigama, while the poorest agricultural laborers tend to include
few Goyigama.

In the Central Highlands, some traditions of the Kingdom of Kandy
survived after its collapse in 1818, preserved in unique forms of the
caste system until the postindependence period. The most important
feature of the old system was rajakariya, or the "king's
work," which linked each caste to a specific occupation and
demanded services for the court and religious institutions. The
connection of caste and job is still stronger in the Central Highlands,
and at events such as the Kandy Perahera, an annual festival honoring
gods and the Buddha, the various castes still perform traditional
functions. The Goyigama in the highlands differ from those of the low
country because they preserve divisions within the caste that derive
from the official ranking of noble and commoner families in the old
kingdom. Honorific titles hearkening back to ancestral homes, manors (vasagama),
or noble houses (gedara) still marked the pedigrees of the old
aristocracy in the 1980s, and marriages between members of these
families and common Goyigama were rare. In the low country, these
subcastes within the Goyigama have faded away, and high status is marked
by European titles and degrees rather than the older, feudal titles.

There are still major differences between the caste structures of the
highlands and those of the low country, although some service groups are
common to both. The southwest coast is home to three major castes whose
ancestors may have immigrated but who have become important actors in
the Sinhalese social system: the Karava (fishermen), the Durava (toddy
tappers), and the Salagama (cinnamon peelers). Originally of marginal or
low status, these groups exploited their traditional occupations and
their coastal positions to accumulate wealth and influence during the
colonial period. By the late twentieth century, members of these castes
had moved to all parts of the country, occupied high business and
academic positions, and were generally accorded a caste rank equal to or
slightly below the Goyigama. The highland interior is home to the
Vahumpura, or traditional makers of jaggery (a sugar made from palm
sap), who have spread throughout the country in a wide variety of
occupations, especially agriculture. In the Kandy District of the
highlands live the Batgam (or Padu), a low caste of agricultural
laborers, and the Kinnara, who were traditionally segregated from other
groups because of their menial status. Living in all areas are service
groups, such as the Hena (Rada), traditional washermen who still
dominate the laundry trade; the Berava, traditional temple drummers who
work as cultivators in many villages; and the Navandanna (Acari),
traditional artisans. In rural environments, the village blacksmith or
washerman may still belong to the old occupational caste groups, but
accelerating social mobility and the growing obsolescence of the old
services are slowly eroding the link between caste and occupation.

Caste among the Tamils

The caste system of the Sri Lankan Tamils resembles the system of the
Sinhalese, but the individual Tamil castes differ from the Sinhalese
castes. The dominant Tamil caste, constituting well over 50 percent of
the Tamil population, are the Vellala. Like the Goyigama, members are
primarily cultivators. In the past, the Vellala formed the elite in the
Jaffna kingdom and were the larger landlords; during the colonial
period, they took advantage of new avenues for mobility and made up a
large section of the educated, administrative middle class. In the
1980s, the Vellala still comprised a large portion of the Tamil urban
middle class, although many well-off families retained interests in
agricultural land. Below the Vellala, but still high in the Tamil caste
system, are the Karaiya, whose original occupation was fishing. Like the
Sinhalese Karava, they branched out into commercial ventures, raising
their economic and ritual position during the nineteenth century. The
Chetti, a group of merchant castes, also have a high ritual position. In
the middle of the caste hierarchy is a group of numerically small
artisan castes, and at the bottom of the system are more numerous
laboring castes, including the Palla, associated with agricultural work.

The caste system of the Tamils is more closely tied to religious
bases than the caste system of the Sinhalese. Caste among the Sri Lankan
Tamils derives from the Brahman-dominated system of southern India. The
Brahmans, a priestly caste, trace their origins to the dawn of Indian
civilization (ca. 1500 B.C.), and occupy positions of the highest
respect and purity because they typically preserve sacred texts and
enact sacred rituals. Many conservative Brahmans view the caste system
and their high position within it as divinely ordained human
institutions. Because they control avenues to salvation by officiating at
temples and performing rituals in homes, their viewpoint has a large
following among traditionally minded Hindus. The standards of purity set
forth by the Brahmanical view are so high that some caste groups, such
as the Paraiyar (whose name came into English as "pariah"),
have been "untouchable," barred from participation in the
social functions or religious rituals of other Hindus. Untouchability
also has been an excuse for extreme exploitation of lower-caste workers.

Although Brahmans in Sri Lanka have always been a very small
minority, the conservative Brahmanical world-view has remained strong
among the Vellala and other high castes. Major changes have occurred,
however, in the twentieth century. Ideas of equality among all people,
officially promoted by the government, have combined with higher levels
of education among the Tamil elites to soften the old prejudices against
the lowest castes. Organizations of low-caste workers have engaged in
successful militant struggles to open up employment, education, and
Hindu temples for all groups, including former untouchables.

The Indian Tamils are predominantly members of low castes from
southern India, whose traditional occupations were agricultural labor
and service for middle and high castes. Their low ritual status has
reinforced their isolation from the Sinhalese and from the Sri Lankan
Tamils.

Caste Interactions in Daily Life

The divisions between the castes are reaffirmed on a daily basis,
especially in rural areas, by many forms of language and etiquette. Each
caste uses different personal names and many use slightly different
forms of speech, so it is often possible for people to determine
someone's caste as soon as the person begins speaking. Persons of lower
rank behave politely by addressing their superiors with honorable
formulas and by removing their headgear. A standard furnishing in upper
caste rural houses is a low stool (kolamba), provided so that
members of lower castes may take a lower seat while visiting. Villages
are divided into separate streets or neighborhoods according to caste,
and the lowest orders may live in separate hamlets. In times past,
low-caste persons of both sexes were prohibited from covering their
upper bodies, riding in cars, or building large homes. These most
offensive forms of discrimination were eliminated by the twentieth
century after extensive agitation.

Outside the home, most social interactions take place without
reference to caste. In villages, business offices, and factories,
members of different groups work together, talking and joking freely,
without feeling uncomfortable about their caste inequalities. The modern
urban environment makes excessive concern about caste niceties
impossible; all kinds of people squeeze onto buses with few worries
about intimate personal contact. Employment, health, and educational
opportunities are officially open to all, without prejudice based on
caste. In urban slums, the general breakdown of social organization
among the destitute allows a wide range of intercaste relationships.
Despite the near invisibility of caste in public life, castebased
factions exist in all modern institutions, including political parties,
and when it comes to marriage--the true test of adherence to ritual
purity--the overwhelming majority of unions occur between members of the
same caste.